Is Bella Swan good for young girls?

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After reading the Twilight books (twice) and re-watching Twilight and New Moon last night I can't help but wonder what type of girls look up to Bella Swan, the series' main character and narrator. She's obsessive and codependent upon Edward AND Jacob, after Edward leaves. She has no real personality traits (clumsy isn't a personality trait) and she isn't even that pretty (per the books, not Kristen Stewart) and yet she has two guys (plus Mike Newton) fall head over heals for her. Will girls get the message that they don't need try to fall in love? (I believe that cute and charming are a must to attract any decent guy.)

And then, after careful consideration ***Spoiler Alert*** she does agree to marry Edward, when she's 18. I'm not saying that you can't find "the one" in high school, but more often than not to marriages end in divorce, or become loveless marriages. I'm worried that a whole generation of young readers will think they have to get married right out of high school. I think that love is often left out of life lessons for young girls. You can fall in love with more than one person in your life. Maybe parents don't want to bring this up because they don't want to think of their little girls having sex with more than one partner (or any partner, for that matter, they want grandchildren via immaculate conception), or maybe they feel that love by example is enough, but it's not. Every love is different.

**Spoiler Alert*** And then, to top it all off, Bella becomes a teen mom. Not a single or unmarried mom, but a teen mom just the same. Does no one see the danger in this? It's one thing to get married and have a honey-moon baby when you're in your late 20s or early 30s, but in your teens it could possibly present all sorts of problems later in life.

I think this is where the author's world and Bella's world get mixed up. Stephanie Meyer grew up Mormon, which is a faith dominated by large families, and in that culture it's not uncommon for couples to marry young and start families early. Meyer herself was married and pregnant before she finished college, and has often said she loves being a mom, and looked forward to that as a career. Which was her choice, and she finished college before she completely settled down.

Bella, on the other hand, grew up with parents separated by divorce because they rushed into marriage at an early age. Which is a major struggle and why Bella doesn't want to marry Edward. But she gives in and the topic of safe sex is never mentioned. Granted, who would think you could get knocked up by a vampire anyway, but still, condoms or the pill or something should have been mentioned, at least as an after thought, at some point in Breaking Dawn.

I guess my biggest fear is that girls who read Twilight and love Bella will think they don't need to develop into an independent person.

I think older readers, such as myself, strongly dislike or hate Bella. I don't like her because she gets everything she ever wants and more. And no one good dies. In Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse books, everyone close to Sookie dies. She has to deal with loss in a real way, and it's related to her relationship with a vampire, to pull the similarities.

Bella Swan: fun to read about, bad to be like.

"Sex and the Single Girl:" why you should read this book

In the 1960s Helen Gurley Brown made it cool to be a single girl. Living by yourself, dating men, having sex before marriage... all thanks to Mrs. Brown. Have you heard of a little magazine called Cosmopolitan? She was the editor-in-chief for YEARS and turned the magazine from a failing family magazine to the premier women's magazine.

If this book was written in the '60s, why should we pay attention to it 50 years later? Because I think that we've lost the single girl spirit. With shows like "The Bachelor" and "Rock of Love with Bret Michaels" the strong, empowered female has gone by the wayside to the husband obsessed skank. Those girls are not looking for love, they're looking for a husband, someone to pamper them and f*ck them, but not someone to love and to care for.

Mrs. Brown rocked the world when she said that it was alright to have sex outside of marriage. She also said it was okay to have sex with a married man. These things were happening (it was the "Mad Men" era) and she spoke out, said yes, we do this, everyone does and ITS OKAY.

I've been looking this book over again and realize that while I was reading "He's Just Not that Into You" I really should have saved myself $15 and read a book I already owned.. Mrs. Brown is blunt, says you're ugly, and then says it doesn't matter, because beauty comes from the inside. The book is written like she's speaking to her best friend who trusts her opinion the most and she's not afraid of hurting you feelings.

Do yourself a favor, visit the library or go to your favorite bookstore, get this book and read it cover to cover. It might be going on 50 years old, but it still holds true, despite a few outdated references.

A few notes on Sophie Kinsella

Before I start, let me preface this by saying I love everything I've ever read by Sophie Kinsella, and I own all of the Shopaholic books. Her characters are always relatable, to a point.

Girl in her mid to late twenties has moderately a sucky life, girl makes life changes, usually involving meeting some amazing and usually rich man, girl lives happily ever after. Right now, I would kill for the crap life her characters start out with, let alone the amazing and rich man. But I think that's why her books are so relatable, her leads are in the same place in life many of us are in. (Hello credit card debt?)

I would just like someone to write a book or tv show or movie or magazine article where the lead character doesn't have a glamorous lifestyle, she doesn't do anything crazy, or life changing, or doesn't fall in love, but in the end, her life is still awesome. Her life is still wonderful because of her family, pets and friends. Maybe no one would read or watch that, but it would be strangely reassuring for those of us who want to be happy with their lives as they are.

So, this is my message to Sophie Kinsella: Please keep writing your books exactly as they are. They give hope to the rest of us normal girls out there that a major change is just around the corner, and it could include an handsome new man, too.